Brick Furnaces. Outline of Issues in the Middle Ages and Modern Period in Central and Western Europe

Marián Čurný

Archeologia technica, vol. 23 (2012)
Pages: 71–82
Language: Slovak
Type of article: scientific article
DOI: n/a

Abstract:
The purpose of this contribution is to inform briefly about the issue of Medieval and Modern brick furnaces from the area of Central and Western Europe. As similarly focused studies has come from foreign authors, the effort of the paper is to bring information on the history of the research, historical development, sources, types and constructions, technology of work and archeological relics of brick kilns in an (for Czech reader) accessible language which would contribute to the intensification of research in this field. After a brief overview of research on the field of archeology there is presented an outline of development of using brick kilns from the Roman period to the Middle Ages. The fact is that brick kilns were created as parts of building enterprise in the construction of monumental religious buildings, in which significantly participated activities of Cistercian Order. We talk about period of 13th–14th century, from which have been identified several brick kilns in the area of Western and Central Europe so far. The second most fundamental source for the research of brick kilns are iconographic sources. Those are available from the 15th century. Although their number is higher, in the contribution there are evaluated only those on which are at least to some extent shown units of brick kilns – a total of eight. In analysis of brick kilns we distinguish whether the kiln was a stable or a temporary construction. The contribution reports the basic description of construction and operation of kilns as well as furnaces. The comment is supplemented by a survey of archeologically discovered relicts of brick kilns from more than 50 locations in Central and Western Europe from 11th to 19th century.